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Mary Worth, 12/4/23

Oh, wow, it turns out Sonia isn’t the only disrespectful person in Kitty’s life, and her smooch with Keith was actually interrupted by this guy Brad. “It’s not what you think!” she protests to the person who knocked her up 20 years ago and who she’s been on two dates with since, as if he had some kind of jurisdiction over her. “I would never have a no-strings-attach fuck buddy relationship with a guy who wore a dumb hat like this! He did not wear the hat the other times he came by for sex!”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/4/23

Sigh, it looks like Rene really did rip off this guy’s self-help method, but maybe it’s worth it because this series of events has resulted in one of the most profound Rex pissyfaces we’ve ever seen. That’s a man who’s experiencing depths of contempt he never before thought possible. I’m assuming he’s grunting out “Self-help program … you created!?!” like Frankenstein’s monster, his outrage thickening his tongue and taking away his ability to use linking words like “that”.

Arctic Circle, 12/4/23

I genuinely love the expression on the rabbit’s face here. He’s immediately and involuntarily imagining the horrifying scene — a massive, powerful polar bear ripping off the top of a camper, pulling out a half-sleeping surfer and devouring them, their screams echoing across the landscape and the snow besplattered with their blood and viscera. He’s a simple vegetarian! He’s not built to think about such horrors!

Pluggers, 12/4/23

I’ve been making jokes about Pluggers for more than 17 years at this point, and in all that time I have frankly gotten no closer to answering the perennial “what is a plugger?” question. But that doesn’t mean I’m just going to sit back and let “You’re a plugger if you’re allergic to dust, or possibly pine needles” slip by. No. Absolutely not. I refute this!

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Crock, 12/2/23

Today’s Crock is just a real rollercoaster and I feel like I have to document my approximate emotional state as it unfolded:

PANEL 1: Wait, a snowflake? In “winter”? In the Saharan Desert? No, absolutely not. And he’s talking about this as if it’s a regular occurence? Insane. Madness.

PANEL 2: Oh ha ha, have you heard that the mysterious nation of “China” has developed a relatively low-cost and acceptable-quality manufacturing sector, upending the traditional nature of global trade? Oh, what’s that, you had heard that? Because it’s not 1997 anymore, so actually you’re pretty well aware of it? Well, OK, I gue–JESUS CHRIST that is enormous, I don’t know WHAT it is but it is NOT a SNOWFLAKE

PANEL 3: Wow, wow, Figowitz is the most put-upon sad sack in the entire canon of Crock, and yet here he is, the first Crock character to receive a message from God Himself. Surely this direct communion with the Divine will change his life and put him on the road to happin–oh, huh, the snowflake melted. Guess it really was a snowflake and they really were in the Sahara after all, whaddya know.

Pluggers, 12/2/23

No rollercoaster here; I don’t care that this panel isn’t a “joke” per se and doesn’t really get us any closer to the answer to the age-old “What is a plugger?” question, I just love it because it’s a bear-man staring in trepidatious disgust at a frankly enormous clod of shit on his shoe. That’s what art is, to me, and I encourage newspapers to keep printing it.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/1/23

I like how Rex and June are talking fairly seriously about Rene, a longtime criminal whose various cons have bedeviled them for years, and Rex suddenly thinks to himself, “Hmm, how long has it been since I’ve done a big overwrought theatrical pantomime bit where I show how much smarter I am than all the rubes I have such contempt for? It’s been a while, right? Not exactly matching the tone of this conversation so far but might as well get to it.”

Pluggers, 12/1/23

Pluggers don’t believe in “metaphors.” Why would you say a word when you actually mean a different word entirely? Sounds like something a big city elitist would do and then make fun of you for not understanding. To a plugger, “eye candy” is just candy that you look at, with your eyes. (It’s not candy made of eyes; that would be gross, like something a big city elitist would order in a restaurant and then make fun of you for not liking.)